Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by cygny
Shadowless by Randall McNally
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I read the first few chapters of this book over the course of three weeks or so. I thought of putting it aside for a bit but a week later, I gave it another try and something clicked.
The thing is, I'm not a fan of short stories usually. This book starts out with every chapter dealing with a different character and they seemingly don't connect to each other. But in a certain chapter, the main character really got to me, only to die at the end of it. And I was hooked. The funny thing, if I tell it like that, it's as if something's wrong with me, that characters dying are the thing that gets me interested. Anyway, once you get somewhere halfway through the book, things do start to overlap and I read the last 80% faster than the first 20%. Characters you see in the beginning come back later and start to come together. I love when characters that start out separately, end up converging on a certain point.
The major thing I had a bit of trouble with, was the huge amount of characters. I'm not talking about the 'main characters' in each chapter, but mostly because nearly each one of them had a whole ton of side characters and I felt there could be more there. All the different countries and politics were also a bit underdeveloped, it would have been nice to know more about the world. And with so many characters, it was hard to really like them completely, because it's difficult to get to really know them.
I guessed some of the things that were going on in the book, but hadn't quite figured it out entirely. I'm not sure about the ending either. It is definitely open for a lot more story, so I do hope the author continues, because even though I'm not entirely attached to a lot of the characters, I would love to read more about some of them.
All in all, I ended up liking the way the story was told, it was really well done.
The thing is, I'm not a fan of short stories usually. This book starts out with every chapter dealing with a different character and they seemingly don't connect to each other. But in a certain chapter, the main character really got to me, only to die at the end of it. And I was hooked. The funny thing, if I tell it like that, it's as if something's wrong with me, that characters dying are the thing that gets me interested. Anyway, once you get somewhere halfway through the book, things do start to overlap and I read the last 80% faster than the first 20%. Characters you see in the beginning come back later and start to come together. I love when characters that start out separately, end up converging on a certain point.
The major thing I had a bit of trouble with, was the huge amount of characters. I'm not talking about the 'main characters' in each chapter, but mostly because nearly each one of them had a whole ton of side characters and I felt there could be more there. All the different countries and politics were also a bit underdeveloped, it would have been nice to know more about the world. And with so many characters, it was hard to really like them completely, because it's difficult to get to really know them.
I guessed some of the things that were going on in the book, but hadn't quite figured it out entirely. I'm not sure about the ending either. It is definitely open for a lot more story, so I do hope the author continues, because even though I'm not entirely attached to a lot of the characters, I would love to read more about some of them.
All in all, I ended up liking the way the story was told, it was really well done.